This is the second post in a two-part series on effective messaging in support of teaching and learning.
The University of Minnesota has piloted ECoach, a platform that provides timely nudges and messages to students, for three semesters. ECoach gives students advice on how to get through challenging classes, empowering them to make positive actions: “It helps you reflect on past assignments and change things for the future.”
The ECoach support team gathered information from students about ECoach messages, including tone, timing, and content. In this post, we will consider how instructors can apply these lessons in any Canvas course site. We will review how to:
- foster a growth mindset,
- craft a successful message,
- create an effective communication plan, and
- use Canvas to deliver the right message at the right time.
Foster a growth mindset
Students have to know that there's a path forward, and often, they need educators to help them see and move down that path.
We invited Dr. Angela Carter (Access & Inclusion Pedagogy Specialist (AIPS) with Minnesota Transform) into the conversation to benefit from her insights into how we can communicate with students in order to support their success. We asked her to explain a growth mindset and its inverse, a fixed mindset.
The concept of a growth mindset presents our capacities and abilities as learners as part of a constant, evolving process. We always have the ability to learn more, to build our skills, and to expand our knowledge through practice.
In contrast, a fixed mindset is a way of understanding learners and their abilities as already established or solidified - you either have some kind of natural, ingrained talent or ability to do something, understand something, excel in some way, or you don’t.
Dr. Carter went on to explain why it’s important for instructors to communicate a growth mindset to their students. Many instructors and students struggle with motivation. A growth mindset allows students to both be where they are in this moment and also understand themselves as having agency in their educational process: they have the ability to grow and change and develop.
But so often students, especially students with marginalized backgrounds, get stuck in that fixed mindset, in the idea that things are never going to change: I'm never going to get better at this; I'm stuck in this place. That impacts how they show up (or not) in the classroom. These students have to know that there's a path forward, and often, they need educators to help them see and move down that path.
Craft a successful message
Instructors want to communicate to students that their course and discipline is rigorous. However, the language instructors use can unintentionally communicate a fixed mindset. Dr. Carter gives this example: Instructors may say things like, “only 10% of you will pass this test.” That statement may be statistically true, but when you suggest that only a few people will succeed, that can get translated into a fixed mindset for students: only a few people can succeed.
When students were asked about ECoach messages, they communicated that successful messages are short and sweet. The ECoach team was surprised to hear that students wanted more communication via ECoach and noticed when messaging tapered off. They appreciate frequent communication and benefit from prompts to take action. Students offered this feedback about the tone, timing, and content of messages:
- Focused: Keep messages to the point. Less is more!
- Non-judgmental: Keep messages encouraging and informative.
- Frequent: Check in with students often.
- Actionable: Offer ONE clear action that they might take, or idea they might consider. What is the one push or incentive you might offer students at a specific point in the semester?
Students indicated that ECoach helped because it made them feel less isolated: “ECoach is reassuring, like having a support group or support system so I don’t feel alone.” Dr. Carter believes in using language that affirms “we’re all in this together.” This builds a learning community and fosters a growth mindset.
Create an effective communication plan
Create an effective communication plan by identifying what students need to know and do at important points in the semester. However, you don’t need to do everything at once! A library of messages can be developed over time and used from semester to semester.
Identify your priorities
Before you begin drafting messages, we recommend examining your syllabus to identify key points in the semester when students could benefit from reminders, advice, and encouragement. Consider these aspects of your course structure (Source: University Of Michigan ECoach):
- What are the main pieces that make up people’s grades?
- What’s the weekly cadence like? Are there readings, labs, and assignments every week? On an irregular schedule?
- How many exams are there? Are they worth most of the grade?
- How much of the points fall into a “controllable points” category? (These are things like homework, readings, attendance, or class participation where if you do it, you get the points.)
- Are there projects or papers?
Identifying priorities based on what’s communicated in your syllabus will help you move on to the next step of drafting messages.
Draft your messages
When creating your communication plan, it’s useful to consider three types of messages:
Supporting messages offer tips and advice and are generally delivered at the beginning of the term. Below are examples of topics that might be developed into brief messages released in the first days and weeks of the course.
- What to expect in the course / how not to be surprised / lessons learned from previous students
- Homework best practices
- How to use the textbook
- Weekly habits to get into before, during, and after the lecture (or lab, or discussion)
- Office hours best practices
- Strategies for going after “controllable points” or low hanging fruit (for example, attendance points)
Timed messages are published to coincide with course events. For example:
- Tips for Exam 1: resources available and how best to study
- Exam 1 reflection: what went well, how to improve for next time, how to put this grade in context with the rest of the course
- Project tips timed with due dates for projects or segments of projects
- Milestones in the course
Targeted messages address a subset of your students in order to address specific needs. Canvas makes it easy for instructors to reach out to students grouped by performance/grades. These messages can be delivered either before or after a major assessment. You might consider crafting messages that would be uniquely meaningful or helpful to students who:
- are struggling (missed key assignments or are struggling with content)
- might improve their grade with some targeted effort and encouragement
- are doing well
Imagine 3 students who match the profiles above coming to your office at a specific point in the semester. What would you tell each of them given their specific needs?
Develop a schedule
Based on the syllabus and course schedule, you can create a schedule of when to release messages. Here is a sample schedule for the first 5 weeks:
- Week 1 - Feature what to expect in the course, how to use your syllabus, resources available
- Week 2 - Controllable points
- Week 3 - Targeted response to low stakes exam
- Week 4 - Tips for Exam 1: resources available and how best to study
- Week 5 - Exam 1 reflection: what went well, how to improve for next time, how to put this grade in context with the rest of the course
Use Canvas to deliver the right message at the right time
Let’s review some of the functionality in Canvas that instructors can use to implement a communication plan.
Announcements
Announcements are an excellent way to send out supporting or timed messages to your students. With announcements you can:
- Easily create a talking-head video to communicate with your students.
- Create your messages ahead of time and indicate when the message will be released to your students.
- Copy Announcements forward from one semester to the next.
If Announcements play an important role in your communication strategy, indicate to your students that they should set their notification to receive Announcements. Learn how to add an announcement in a course.
“Message students who”
Targeted messages can be sent from the Grade Book or New Analytics where you can “message students who”
- Haven't submitted yet—students who haven't submitted the assignment, even if they have been manually awarded a grade.
- Haven't been graded—students whose assignments have not yet been graded (submitted or unsubmitted).
- Scored less than [point value]—students who earned a grade on their assignment less than X number of points.
- Scored more than [point value]—students who earned a grade on their assignment more than X number of points.
Though you may be sending a message to many students, each student will receive an individual message. For this reason, do NOT name individual students in your message. Learn how to send a message to students from the Gradebook.
Leveraging these tools in Canvas makes it easy to reach out to students, connect them to helpful resources and move them along the path to success.
Resources
Student Support Resources
Faculty Resources
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to:
- Angela Carter, Access & Inclusion Pedagogy Specialist (AIPS) with Minnesota Transform
- University of Michigan ECoach team.
This post was co-written with:
- Jackie Olsson, Director, SMART Learning Commons
- Alyssa Bonnac, Education Program Specialist, Center for Educational Innovation